Milford, Mass. Aug 20th, 1864
My Dear Wife,
I have received nothing from you since the letter which I replied from Hopkinton. I did very well at Hopkinton in selling town lots. I worked quite hard and got quite warn out. I preached Sunday, lectured on the west Monday eve and on Tuesday on the siege of Vicksburg. The collections were very small amounting to about $6. But I sold 10 Town Lots making all together $201. so that I have nearly enough to vet $500 above expenses. I hope to make it up to this though times are harder for laboring people than I thought off. Everything to live is so terrible high that men who get good wages have to pinch hard to live. Warren has a nice peddling team and thinks he is closing pretty well selling dry good and Yankee rations about in neighboring towns. It is somewhat sickly here and they have two or three funerals a day. Mrs Saml Templeton died suddenly last night. She was miserably poor. Had been forsaken by her husband who you recollect used to be one of my special friends doing all he could to ---- me but never succeeding. He is now in State Prison for marrying four different wives. There appears to be a good deal of the Devil’s ----- these days.
I stopped at Parker Coburns some in Hopkinton and sold him 2 Town lots. They live a perfect Hell upon earth and it is difficult to tell which is the most to blame. She says that he is worth $300,000 and will let her have but little money to get by with and she has to work like a slave. She now had a green Irish girl and is expecting another. She has had a dozen different girls within a few months and can’t keep them. She complains bitterly of his treatment of her. Their quarrels are town talk. She says he has used personal violence on her many times and misused her in every possible way. She wanted my advise as she had more confidence in me than any other. I told her she had better be in a factory carrying her living than to be in such a Hell upon earth, that I would demand a settlement of $25,000 or an annuity for my support and if this were denied I would sue for a divorce. She says he had told her 500 times to leave him and her Webster says that Coburn has tried every way to get rid of her and offered to leave it to arbitration how they shall part and settle but she won’t do it. Mr Harris told me that May told his daughter that she overheard them talking last week and that she called him a --- old tyrant and said that all he wanted of her was to work like a slave all day and then ride her all night. I have not detailed this gossip because it is rich or palatable to you though this may be true but it is a good illustration of a good part of the legal marriage in high life. Wealth, lust and pride make a Hell which I thank God that he has not suffered us to fall into but I do hope that his spirit will lead us to the opposite result of a divorce unity which is higher and sweeter that the world or the flesh ever dreamed of. We shall find if we follow the truth in the Love of it, that Heaven is not far off as we used to imagine. I feel quite in a hurry to get home but you know the journey has cost a good deal and I want to do my work up faithfully.
I feel very grateful for the success which I have met with and for the prospect of getting up a little church. This will be the finishing stroke of the colony job and then we will see what the Lord will lead us to. I know that the Lord has led us in all the past and his goodness has been wonderful indeed and I expect it will be even more clear to us hereafter. I am very happy in Christ and I do expect to continue to be forever and I hope you will be as much so. God is no respecter of persons. Make room for him and he will fill you with the Heaven of his own joy and the calmness of his security. To give all is to receive all, to loose all is to gain all. To die totally is to live completely. What beautiful paradoxes there are in the truth. I gave all my property to God and he has given me all things. The farther I go from you the nearer I am to you. When you give me altogether to Christ you will possess me as you never did before. He who said “Behold I make all things new” is infinite Love and he will not take away any old thing without giving us something for better to supply its place. But he will come on all the world as a ---- and I trust we are not of the world as he is not of the world.
I think I shall go to Albion to see your folks next week. I have a letter from Father that Caroline will be at home in a few days so I shall return that way. Elisha is a little shakey about going west. The draft is coming off and his town has made no provision and substitutes are $1130. and if he is drafted his family need all his money. The world is in a terrible fix these days. But it is all preparing the way of the Lord.
Oh! How I thank him that he has taken us to the mountain top and showed us his glory and set his seal upon my heart. He will do the same for you if you will open your heart toward Him and let Him in to keep with you and the feast will be Eternal Love.
Elisha says she won’t write now. Tell her you are all right and seeing she couldn’t come you are both one and you are visiting for both.
We are going to have cabbage for dinner by the smell.
I shall probably preach half a day tomorrow and lecture Monday.
Love to all.
Your affectionate husband,
L Bolles Jr.
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